Third Party & Independents: Archives

I vote we raise taxes on Republicans and any Independents who voted Republican, lower taxes on Democrats, and keep raising Republican taxes until the war is over and the debt is paid. After all, they’re the ones that got us in this mess.

Then maybe a little more for good measure, to assure social security and medicare.

Posted by: womanmarine at September 28, 2007 10:35 PM

David,
Thanks for addressing these issues with your article.

In the long term, most of these problems are ultimately demographic problems, based upon projections. We need to change the demographic basis, and the solution is obvious:

Increase legal immigration.

Encourage immigrantion. Offer amnesty to those already in the country. Simplify the process for becoming an American citizen. Do away with guest worker programs, with the exception of ones allowing students from abroad to study here. Anyone who wants to commit to becoming an American citizen, staying in this country, earning at least a minimum wage, paying taxes, passing a background check, and swearing an oath would be welcome.

So much for problems with social security. Change the demographics, and there you have it; problem solved.

Institute national health. Limit or eliminate malpractice lawsuits, for-profit insurance involvement, and Big Pharma. Existing health care programs could be still available for anyone wealthy enough to afford them. Most drug development already comes through government funded entities such as universities, so Big Pharma would certainly not be missed. There is no need to re-invent the wheel on this issue. Other countries do a much better job of providing health care to their citizens at lower costs.

In the short term, we are in pretty rough shape. Bernanke did what he had to do by lowering the Federal Funds Rate by 50 basis points. Faced with the near certainty of a very bad recession in the near term, versus the possible down side of long term inflation/falling dollar/national debt, he made the only realistic choice available. Even then, it may not be enough.

The rest is up to the next President and Congress. 9% of the federal budget is eaten up by interest. The $9 trillion national debt is eating us alive, and as the dollar tanks, foreigners will be less and less inclined to fund the debt driven recovery of the past few years, not to mention the disastrous War in Iraq. Commodity fueled inflation makes it even less attractive.

The short term Solution? Roll back the ill-conceived Bush tax cuts to 2001 levels. End the War in Iraq immediately. Eliminate congressional earmarks. Establish public financing of elections.

Just ramblings. There are solutions for the short and long term problems we face. What we lack is political will.

Posted by: phx8 at September 28, 2007 11:49 PM

David:

In all the gloom there are rays of hope. One such “rays of hope” was discovered by Merrill Lynch back in 2005. (two years ago).

They uncovered that baby boomers plan on creating a whole new time of life. It used to be there was childhoold, teenager(hood), adulthood and retirement. Now it appears babyboomers are about to create another stage in life between their careers and full retirement.

Here is a quote from their findings:

Taking advantage of their “longevity bonus,” boomers will create a whole new life stage. Since Social Security established the “normal” retirement age at 65, life expectancy for a 65-year-old has increased by over seven years and continues to lengthen. As a result of living longer, this generation plans to be “younger” longer and work longer. Most boomers (65%) will stop working for pay and retire in the traditional sense at some point. However, that phase is more likely to begin in the late 60’s, than at age 60 or 65.

This has the potential for an enourmously positive effect on personal finances and taxation. For instance if a person delays taking funds from their 401k by say 4 years, and if you assume a modest 6% return using very rough numbers that increases the value of their 401k by 25%. The effect of on the US treasury is the same, meaning that because of the delay there is 25% more funds to be taxed and 25% more tax revenue to be collected.

On thing is for certain, our assumptions about retirement are about to be dismantled as baby boomers rewrite the book.

Merrill Lynch also found that only 17% of baby boomers plan on “not working at all” after retirement. Retirment for babyboomers really means some sort of career change to something more flexible and creative.

It’s going to be fun to watch.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 28, 2007 11:57 PM

phx8 I grew up in Indianpolis and Eli Lily is not a college university and it’s HUGE to the city, I pretty sure it made prozac (which I’m not proud of).
On your other point that other countries do much better at health care. I was at the pub last week and started a conversation with a newly Canadian import. And trust me I’m not political when I’m trying to have fun but he brought up something and I questioned. Bottom line he was in the Canadian system 1.5 years with no answers but in America he went in on Tuesday and by Monday he was given a MRI and was on medication. Where did Castro go for treatment?

Posted by: andy at September 29, 2007 12:10 AM

After all, they’re the ones that got us in this mess.

And that is why we will learn the hard way.

After all, they’re the ones that got us in this mess.

And that is why we will learn the hard way.

It’s all the Republicans’ fault.
It’s all the Democrats’ fault.
It’s all the Independents’ fault.
The fact is, it is ALL of our fault.
But not enough of us want to face it.

As for the debt, consider this.
If we started tomorrow to:

(1) stop borrowing over $1 billion per day (need for interest) on the $9 Trillion National debt.

• (2) started paying back enough to stop the $9 Trillion National debt from growing + plus another $35 Million per day


• (3) and provided interest rates don’t climb above 4.5%


• (4) and provided no disasters or wars derail that for the next 153 years

The $9 Trillion National Debt could be paid off (in 153 years).
However, that doesn’t address the Social Security and Medicare problems.
$12.8 Trillion was already borrowed and spent out of Social Security.
Therefore, how can you pay down a $9 Trillion National debt and continue Social Security, Medicare, penstions (PBGC $450 Billion in debt), and fight two wars with a 77 Million baby boomer bubble on the way?
Do you know what debt is doing to the money system?
QUESTION: What is good when yoi have a LOT of debt?
ANSWER: Inflation.

Here is what inflation does to savings, income, etc.:
Inflation: 1% ____ 2% ____ 3% ____ 4% ____ 5% ____6% ____ 7% ___ 10% ___ 12% ___14%
YEAR:$100.00_$100.00_$100.00_$100.00_$100.00_ $100.00_$100.00_$100.00_ $100.00_$100.00
01 __ $99.00 _ $98.00 _ $97.00 _ $96.00 _ $95.00 _ $94.00 _ $93.00 _ $90.00 _ $88.00 _ $86.00
02 __ $98.01 _ $96.04 _ $94.09 _ $92.16 _ $90.25 _ $88.36 _ $86.49 _ $81.00 _ $77.44 _ $73.96
03 __ $97.03 _ $94.12 _ $91.27 _ $88.47 _ $85.74 _ $83.06 _ $80.44 _ $72.90 _ $68.15 _ $63.61
04 __ $96.06 _ $92.24 _ $88.53 _ $84.93 _ $81.45 _ $78.07 _ $74.81 _ $65.61 _ $59.97 _ $54.70
05 __ $95.10 _ $90.39 _ $85.87 _ $81.54 _ $77.38 _ $73.39 _ $69.57 _ $59.05 _ $52.77 _ $47.04
10 __ $90.44 _ $81.71 _ $73.74 _ $66.48 _ $59.87 _ $53.86 _ $48.40 _ $34.87 _ $27.85 _ $22.13
15 __ $86.01 _ $73.86 _ $63.33 _ $54.21 _ $46.33 _ $39.53 _ $33.67 _ $20.59 _ $14.70 _ $10.41
20 __ $81.79 _ $66.76 _ $54.38 _ $44.20 _ $35.85 _ $29.01 _ $23.42 _ $12.16 _ $07.76 _ $04.90
25 __ $77.78 _ $60.35 _ $46.70 _ $36.04 _ $27.74 _ $21.29 _ $16.30 _ $07.18 _ $04.09 _ $02.30
30 __ $73.97 _ $54.55 _ $40.10 _ $29.39 _ $21.46 _ $15.63 _ $11.34 _ $04.24 _ $02.16 _ $01.08

Even 4% inflation will turn $100 into $81.54 in 5 years.
Who remembers the double digit inflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s?
Look at what 14% inflation does to $100 in 5 years. It erodes it to only $47.04 (and to only $22.13 in 10 years).
GDP keeps growing, but that may change with a 77 million baby boomer bubble and growing global competition.
But even if GDP continues growing at the same rate, it won’t be enough to save us.
But debt is not really the real danger.
All of our pressing problems are not the real danger.

Increase legal immigration.

Right. Let’s first ask China (population=1.3 Billion) and India (population=1.1 Billion) about all of the wonderful advantages of over population. After all, the world population is only growing by 249,000 per day (10,375 per hour, 173 per minute). In 1959, there were 12.16 acres per person (i.e. 36.48 billion acres / 3 billion people). In 2006, there were 5.46 acres per person (i.e. 36.48 billion acres / 6.68 billion people). By 2039, there may be only 2.81 acres per person (i.e. 36.48 billion acres / 13 billion people). Yep, keep it up and see where it get us all. And did anyone mention global warming? 6.7 Billion people pumping 24 billion metric tons of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere annually might have a little something to do with that. Immigration? Sure, why not. Let’s just let everyone come here. Oh … never mind, we’re already letting in 3 million per year (1 million legally, and 2 million illegally).

The thing to worry about is not only the nation’s many problems growing in number and severity.
The thing to truly worry about is human nature, and decades of increasing selfishness, apathy, complacency, misplaced loyalties fueled by laziness (evidenced in many ways, such as obesity, declining education, debt, and growing moral and fiscal bankruptcy), corruption, and most (if not all) politicians that are master parasites and experts at tapping into the voters’ laziness for their own nefarious purposes).

That is what Americans should truly worry about.
It isn’t that we can’t solve problems if we wanted to.
The problem is that we don’t want to solve problems … at least, not until the consequences become too painful.

Craig, Yeah, yeah, we know. “We will be fine”. Your projections are all based on corrections and solutions along the way. That’s the danger in such rosy predictions. They fail to see the big picture, and the wild card is human behavior, greed, corruption, and it will get worse with diminishing resources and a world population growing by 249,000 per day. Yes, with only 5.46 acres per person now, you’d better hope like hell that we learn new and better ways to feed billions more people on less and less land (arable land is already being lost at a rate of 38,610 square miles (24.7 million acres) per year.

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 12:18 AM

phx8 said: “We need to change the demographic basis, and the solution is obvious: Increase legal immigration.”

From where I sit, that is not a solution, but a replication of the problem, for our grand and great grandkids.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2007 12:21 AM

Andy,
Big Pharma contributes something, especially with its research and development. However, the enormous amounts of money which go to marketing cause the costs of newly developed drugs to be exhorbitant. The R & D can be publicly financed through universities without the added costs of marketing, not to mention the useless “me-too” pharmaceutical companies who contribute nothing to the process but additional costs to consumers.

Having said that, Prozac made an enormous difference to a person close to me. It literally changed her life, changed it for the better. Mine too, as a result! I only wish I had known about it a long time ago.

Posted by: phx8 at September 29, 2007 12:25 AM

A balanced budget after S.S. surpluses were set aside would have virtually eliminated the fiscal crisis for at least another 30 years.

A balanced world population at around 1955 to 1960 would have averted most of the ecological and energy crises we now face.

A balanced government of checks and balances would have brought down the national debt since 2002 instead of increasing it 3 trillion.

The answers we seek are not more, more, more as phx8 suggests, but, balance and even some reductions here and there. But, balance has virtually left the political lexicon for good. And that folks continues to make our children’s future untenable.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2007 12:35 AM

On top of the masive debt problems are many REGRESSIVE systems that are widening the disparity trend that was been worsening for over 30 years:

• [1] Massive debt is being piled up on voters and younger generations too (it could last centuries). With a 77 million baby boomer bubble approaching (13,175 more people per day eligible for Social Security and Medicare), I wonder if the younger workers are going to tolerate it. The weight of so much debt is unfair and worse than a REGRESSIVE tax, since it doesn’t paint a pretty picture for them by the time the younger Americans approach old age.


• [2] illegal immigration is like a REGRESSIVE tax, causing job displacement and many burdens and costs to be shifted to tax payers that already pay REGRESSIVE sales taxes and REGRESSIVE income taxes for the burdened social servcies.

[3] the ridiculous federal tax system which is effectively REGRESSIVE,

• [4] inflation is like a REGRESSIVE tax, since the poor are limited in ways of preserving wealth with property, gold, stocks, homes, etc.; the mismanaged money system creates inflation; predatory interest rates and lending practices (raising ARMs from 6% to 14%); and the Fed gets to earn interest on money created out of thin air; how did this ever come about?


• [5] dozens and dozens of REGRESSIVE sales taxes (city, state, county sales taxes, fuel taxes, telephone excise taxes and fees, etc.)


• [6] corporate income taxes are more like hidden REGRESSIVE taxes passed on to consumers; have you seen owners of corporations cutting their salaries?


• [7] property taxes in many cases are REGRESSIVE, since like sales taxes, as income decreases, the property tax as a percentage of income increases.


• [8] caps (e.g. currently $97,500) on Social Security taxes is a REGRESSIVE tax; thus the wealthy collect Social Security, but they do not contribute proportionately with respect to income;

And then there are the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Iraq wasn’t necessary, and was largely based on invalid intelligence about WMD).

So why isn’t Do-Nothing Congress addressing any of these issues?
Well, perhaps it is because they already see the $#!+ storm on the way and are busy gettin’ theirs so they can weather it?
After all, they have given themselves 9 raises in the last 10 years.
Their bank accounts and weatlh are growing fast.
Is yours?

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 12:38 AM

phx8, that’s awesome on the prozac thing for you really, it changed someone close to me to a crazy man, but I think it’s all in the mind anyway. What about the fact that gov. healthcare countries seek privatized medicine?

Posted by: andy at September 29, 2007 12:38 AM

David,
Encouraging immigration would replicate the problem if no changes are made. By changing the system, and bringing immigrants into the system, paying them minimum wage, and integrating them into the tax base, demographic problems would be resolved by lowering the average age of Americans, and widening the economic base to cover the wave of retiring Americans.

Illegal immigration and outsourcing undermine the economic system and contribute to the awful projections for Social Security, as well as Medicare/Medicaid. If we do not like the outcome of projections, we should change the underlying assumptions.

Posted by: phx8 at September 29, 2007 12:38 AM

phx8, I have been touting government subsidized university R&D with taxpayers entitlements to .25% of all leases, trademark, patents and profits from production based on that research as a means of repaying taxpayers for their investments in government.

You stike a chord with me on the Pharma R&D. But, as long as Big Pharma industry is funding political campaigns, it is going to be tough to get politicians to move toward solutions for the country instead of solutions for Big Pharma’s annual bottom line.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2007 12:41 AM

Andy,
It would be nice if everyone could have everything without paying for it. Ideally, everyone should be entitled to top of the line, state of the art health care without limits, regardless of expense. Of course, that is impossible. We have to live within our means, and provide for others within our means. And that means private health care can and should be available to those wealthy enough to opt out of a system of basic coverage.

David,
Balance & a few reductions versus more and more? “More” can represent a form of balance, too. No one likes to pay taxes. But to me, the question is what we receive in exchange for our tax dollars. Paying 9% of my tax dollars to fund the national debt seems like a terrible deal. Paying 9% of my tax dollars, or even more, for basic cradle-to-grave health care would be a terrific deal.

Posted by: phx8 at September 29, 2007 01:05 AM

phx8,
What makes you think educated, productive immigrants want to move to the U.S.?
The only immigrants that you can get in the numbers you are talking about would place more burdens on social services and systems and worsen already troubled systems.
Importing the less educated and impoverished by the tens or hundreds of millions is a recipe for disaster.
Perhaps we should ask China and India about the wonderful advantages of over population.
Are we in some sort of population race?
How is population going to do anything to help?
More likely it will make things worse.
Have you considered the environmental implications?
Have you considered the fact that immigrants (on average) for years after immigrating are a drain on social services and systems.
Even now, illegal aliens are costing American citizens over $70 Billion annually in net losses.
I agree with David R. Remer.
Importing tens and hundreds of millions of immigrants is crazy. Massive and rapid immigration (legal or not) fuels, resentments, friction, and societal chaos.

Also, don’t you think there is possible a moral issue? To use immigration to pay for the bankrupted Social Security and Medicare for a generation that was fiscally irresponsible? That is even if that could work, which I don’t think it can. While it may increase GDP, will it help the average citizen per capita? I doubt it. We already have stagnant incomes for the last 8 years and a growing wealth disparity trend for the last 30 years.. Are you so sure hundreds of millions of new immigrants will help solve our fiscal problems? If not, then the problem will be MUCH worse, with MUCH more people all fighting over diminishing resources.

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 01:11 AM

phx8,
but god, I wish I could remember but I promise you it wasn’t a big deal, it wasn’t some “elite” type health issue he had. We all would suffer from a gov. healthcare system.

Btw, he was a very liberal person but he only talked out about how conservatism changed his whole way of thinking and living.

Posted by: andy at September 29, 2007 01:22 AM

I’m not thrilled about a government run healthcare system, but it should eliminate one unnecessary middleman (insurance companies).

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 01:26 AM

d.a.n.,
“What makes you think educated, productive immigrants want to move to the U.S.?”

Many do. But most immigrants would be the poor, hard working people we already see. And I think they are the key to the long term problems of our country, the solution. Becoming Americans offers them the opporunity to succeed, and more importantly, offers their children the opporunity. It means job creation. It ultimately means investing in ourselves. The net result is not a drain, but a boost.

Environmental implications are real, but not a deal breaker.

And remember, I am talking about legal immigration, not exploitative illegal immigration, which seems cheap, but actually hurts both everyone involved.

“Hundreds of millions” of new immigrants would be impractical, but tens of millions might work.

“Also, don’t you think there is possible a moral issue? To use immigration to pay for the bankrupted Social Security and Medicare…”

It is not a moral issue, because the same people would be paying into the system, and eventually receiving the same benefits.

“Massive and rapid immigration (legal or not) fuels, resentments, friction, and societal chaos.”

That has been true throughout American history. Every incoming group has encountered problems and resentments. But through the melting pot of assimilation, I think it would be fair to say that every group, rich or poor, has eventually made terrific contributions to the American fabric.

Posted by: phx8 at September 29, 2007 01:32 AM

Isn’t the economy dependent on continued growth? Can you continue to grow the economy without continuing to grow the human race as well?

Posted by: jlw at September 29, 2007 08:07 AM

jlw, yes the achilles heel of capitalism is continued growth. We need to modify the plan or expand to other planets.IMHO If we continue to listen to the growth at any cost uber capitalist its war and more war.

Posted by: j2t2 at September 29, 2007 09:47 AM

phx,

Have you really researched this idea of importing more immigrants in the hopes of increasing tax revenues?
If you had, you would know it is a very bad idea for several reasons.

First of all, historically, low-skilled and low-educated immigrants produce net drains; not incresed tax revenues.

Second, over-population is a bad idea. World wide over-population is going to lead to wars, as diminishing resources and increasing population amplifies all problems.
In 2006, there was only 1.15 acres of arable (farmable) land per person (i.e. 7.68 billion acres / 6.68 billion people).
By 2039, there may be only 0.59 acres of arable land per person (i.e. 7.68 billion acres / 13 billion people).
Have you really done the calculations to consider what the implications of increased population will be? Not just in the U.S., but world-wide?
The world population is already growing by 91 million per year (249,000 per day)!
I think people are hoping technology is going to save us all.
20 million new impoverished and less educated immigrants to the U.S. will increase tax revenues. They will remain poor because that is what usually happens. Historically, they are a burden on social services and systems. A net loss on tax revenues. It does not matter if they are legal immigrants or illegal aliens. Both are a drain because.

And what if this plan to increase the population fails? Now you have amplified all of your problems. OOOoops … we’re so sorry. There is no historical prescendent to show that immigrants help raise tax revenues. In fact, it is the opposite. Legal status has very little to do with this. Children of immigrants (legal or not) use shcools, welfare, etc. Several studies show that low-skill, low-education immigrants (legal or not) use more services than the taxes they pay (legal alien or not).

In all other age categories, low-skill immigrant households (legal or not) receive at least 2 times more in benefits for each dollar in taxes paid. Among elderly low-skill households, they recieve 8 times more in benefits than tax paid.

Want more proof? Half of 12+ million illegal aliens already pay income taxes. They pay sales taxes. But they cause net losses of over $70 Billion annually (some estimates place it as high as $338 Billion). And that does not even account for crime, and job displacement.

Today isn’t like the 1850’s where few tax-payer services existed to be exploited. Immigrants (legal or not) will use schools, hospitals, ERs, healthcare, prisons, Medicaid, welfare, and vote too.

Already, 32% of illegal aliens receive welfare. 29% of all incarcerated in federal prisons are illegal aliens (and that’s not merely for illegal trespass, since the first time is only a misdemeanor).

So you might want to seriously rethink your idea of using immigration (legal or not). That plan is seriously flawed and will make everything worse. The studies show the complete opposite. The only way it would make things better is if most immigrants are highly skilled and highly educated. That’s not likely to happen. The highly skilled and highly educated like where they are already.

Several studies refute your notion that government can relieve financial strains in Social Security and other programs simply by importing younger immigrant workers.

The fiscal impact of an immigrant worker is determined far more by skill level than by age. Low-skill immigrant workers impose a net drain on government finance.

low-skill immi­grant households impose substantial long-term costs on the U.S. taxpayer, because the receiving on average $19.6K more in benefits than they pay in taxes each year. Again, it does not matter if they are illegal aliens or legal immigrants.

A few others have recommended this plan before and it is not hard to show how it is a bad plan.
The only reason that is exactly what is happening how is not because it is a good idea. It is because of more sinister reasons: cheap labor for profits and Democrat votes. Think about that: Democrats voting for more costly social systems.

There are better solutions. For one thing, more tax revenues can be raised if everyone pays their fair share. However, there are currently many REGRESSIVE systems that are widening the disparity trend (in the U.S. for over 30 years):

• [1] Massive debt is being piled up on voters and younger generations too (it could last centuries). With a 77 million baby boomer bubble approaching (13,175 more people per day eligible for Social Security and Medicare), I wonder if the younger workers are going to tolerate it. The weight of so much debt is unfair and worse than a REGRESSIVE tax, since it doesn’t paint a pretty picture for them by the time the younger Americans approach old age.


• [2] illegal immigration is like a REGRESSIVE tax, causing job displacement and many burdens and costs to be shifted to tax payers that already pay REGRESSIVE sales taxes and REGRESSIVE income taxes for the burdened social servcies.

[3] the ridiculous federal tax system which is effectively REGRESSIVE,

• [4] inflation is like a REGRESSIVE tax, since the poor are limited in ways of preserving wealth with property, gold, stocks, homes, etc.; the mismanaged money system creates inflation; predatory interest rates and lending practices (raising ARMs from 6% to 14%); and the Fed gets to earn interest on money created out of thin air; how did this ever come about?


• [5] dozens and dozens of REGRESSIVE sales taxes (city, state, county sales taxes, fuel taxes, telephone excise taxes and fees, etc.)


• [6] corporate income taxes are more like hidden REGRESSIVE taxes passed on to consumers; have you seen owners of corporations cutting their salaries?


• [7] property taxes in many cases are REGRESSIVE, since like sales taxes, as income decreases, the property tax as a percentage of income increases.


• [8] caps (e.g. currently $97,500) on Social Security taxes is a REGRESSIVE tax; thus the wealthy collect Social Security, but they do not contribute proportionately with respect to income;

And then there are the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Iraq wasn’t necessary, and was largely based on invalid intelligence about WMD).

The debt problem is serious, but it is largely due to the many REGRESSVIE systems above.
The wealthy are not paying their fair share (as an equal percentage of income).
Warren Buffet (2nd wealthiest person in the U.S.) paid a smaller percentage of income to taxes than a secretary making $60K per year.
Our current tax system is REGRESSIVE, among many other REGRESSIVE systems that have developed over time (see above).

Those things should be fixed. Then we can deal with the approaching 77 million baby boomer without using humans beings to fix our fiscal problems.

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 10:49 AM

jlw asked: “Isn’t the economy dependent on continued growth?”

A very controversial question, which ultimately is a philosophical question, not one of arithmetic. Here is why.

The world economy must expand if 1) Revolution and civil war are avoided by reducing poverty and privation, (which history indicates is true), and either of the following is true: 2) population continues to grow, or, 3) populations demand wealth equity while preserving the well being of the wealthy class.

The problem of course arises with the definition of economics: “The distribution and allocation of finite resources within a population of infinite demand for those resources”. Infinite expansion of economic growth is not possible in a world of finite resources. At some point, as we have seen, resources begin to deplete, and to the extent that those resources being depleted are necessary for human life, dignity, or quality of life, economic growth becomes limited and fuels revolutions, civil, and international wars over those limited and depleting resources (Iraq and oil for example).

Clean, healthy, life sustaining air is an economic resource which is being depleted by carbon emissions, other pollutants, and by heating (the act of breathing in an arid environment without water becomes lethally dehydrating). Water is even more critically in short supply, while demand for it is increasing globally.

So, the concept that economic growth must be perpetual to sustain a continual growth in population numbers is a concept that leads to disastrous human and ecological consequences. The world has the capacity to sustain the current population with considerable reorganization and redistribution of wealth that accommodates all the basic needs of that population. But, only if that population becomes static or drops. Continued population growth makes economic models break down.

Additionally, the inherent drive within all young people to improve their position and status through the modern belief of accumulation of resources, creates a demand for more even if the population growth rate zeroes out. An extremely poignant argument is made in the movie Instinct with Cuba Gooding Jr and Anthony Hopkins playing the anthropologist who lived with gorillas, where Ethan (Anthony Hopkins) describes the change in the world 10,000 years ago when human groups evolved away from balance and harmonious respect and acceptance of the natural world around them into what he calls “Takers”, who assume dominion over the natural world working to alter the natural world to bend it to their will and demands.

This is poignant because it highlights, and directly implies the philosophical debate over whether, finite and limited minds are capable of dominion over a multivariate environment, so complex in its self-regulating mechanisms, as to not be fully understood nor altered without negative life threatening consequences. The very system which fostered and nurtured life may not remain friendly to life if its internal self-regulating mechanisms are altered for greed and unlimited ‘Taking’ from it.

Perpetual economic growth viewed in this context with current mining and constant conversion of the world’s resources by human societies, is arguably a false concept and view of economics. Our physical world is finite. The appetites of ever growing human population numbers, or even ever growing appetites of static population numbers at today’s levels, will continue to deplete and convert the finite life sustaining resources of the planet.

As those resources become rarer, competition for them turns to war and/or subjugation of human populations without resource access, by other humans with controlling access, to ever more precious resources, in defense of their control of access to those resources. Poverty as we know, leads to greater population numbers, not less.

Ergo, perpetual economic growth is not sustainable, because as resources become used up or converted, poverty will increase, and so will population numbers, making competition for those resources more acute, and societies inevitably unstable. America is witnessing this very phenomena with its illegal immigration crisis.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2007 12:18 PM

JLW:

Isn’t the economy dependent on continued growth? Can you continue to grow the economy without continuing to grow the human race as well?

Actually thee economy is dependent on growth of the labor force plus increases in productivity. Economies with stagnant labor forces can still grow, they will simply grow at the rate of productivity.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 29, 2007 05:45 PM

phx:

Encouraging immigration would replicate the problem if no changes are made. By changing the system, and bringing immigrants into the system, paying them minimum wage, and integrating them into the tax base, demographic problems would be resolved by lowering the average age of Americans, and widening the economic base to cover the wave of retiring Americans.

I think you are right on the money. In addition I think you will see incentives to slow down retirement. I think you will see retirees rehired. The coming labor shortage will be addressed.

Those trying to limit immigration will be greatly discouraged over time. You can influence immigration but you can’t “control” immigration.

The American economy needs more skilled workers. They will come. We have a long history if this happening!!

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 29, 2007 05:52 PM

Dan:

Craig, Yeah, yeah, we know. “We will be fine”. Your projections are all based on corrections and solutions along the way. That’s the danger in such rosy predictions.

My “rosy prediction” is simply that the american economy will continue to grow more or less as it always has. I can see it slowing for a while, while the country adjusts to longer life and lower birth rates. Overtime it will rebalance itself and then grow faster than normal.

It’s nice to have both Bernanke and Greenspan agreeing!!

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 29, 2007 06:01 PM

The American economy needs more skilled workers. They will come. We have a long history if this happening!!

Not true. We do not have a history of more skilled workers providing a net benefit to tax revenues. Can you provide evidence to the contrary?

But, if you want tens of millions more immigrants per year, you are in good company. Congress (BOTH Republican and Democrat politicians) agree with you.

A nation can control immigration if it wants to.
We simply don’t have the will.
There’s a difference.

And Bernanke and Greenspan don’t have crytal balls. Bernanke is predicting 14% drop (from rosier projections) in the standard of living.

To be honest, I can’t put too much store in two people that work at the Federal Reserve which perpetuates incessant inflation and collects interest from money created out of thin air.

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 06:20 PM

Dan:

A nation can control immigration if it wants to.
We simply don’t have the will.
There’s a difference.

Why in the world would we want to? (If we could).

But, if you want tens of millions more immigrants per year, you are in good company. Congress (BOTH Republican and Democrat politicians) agree with you.

that must be their answer to David’s issue!!

Bernanke is predicting 14% drop (from rosier projections) in the standard of living.

In Bernnake’s article he is rooting for generational equity. He says that our children will have a decline over what it would have been, meaning that their increase in standard of living might not match our generations increase in standard of living if we do not act. He goes on to say that simply by increasing the national savings rate by 3%, generational equity will exist.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 29, 2007 06:37 PM

Craig,

Did you read the article?
Since when (in the past 70 years) did we have a history of more skilled workers providing a net benefit to tax revenues. Can you provide evidence to the contrary?

Otherwise, your plan for increasing immigration is flawed.

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 06:47 PM

Craig, Greenspan warns in his book of the convergence of debt and entitlement obligations potentially threatening the very existence of democratic capitalism. He is not agreeing with you.

Bernanke is restrained as Greenspan was in his position, but, before he became FED chief he too warned that we may be passing the point of no return in terms of getting control of this runaway crisis.

And as I have explained before, the untapped productivity that lied before us at the close of WWII, now lies tapped out at maximum, unless of course, as you suggest, we trade horrific problems of overpopulation in low wage families for partial the partial solution in expanding a lower wage work force for revenues.

But, as Steny Hoyer quoted CBO, it would take double digit percentage growth rate in GDP for the next 75 years to grow our way out of the unfunded mandates. That is not within the realm of possibility and Bernanke said the same thing, GDP growth cannot meet the challenge of rising fiscal debt and growing poverty and demands for health care by 77 million retirees. Especially in a global marketplace that favors other nations over ours in exports, and therefore sales revenues.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2007 07:14 PM

Craig that is a false statement. The economy is NOT dependent on growing labor force and or productivity. A growing GDP is not necessary for a sustaining economy. A balanced economy with zero labor force growth and zero productivity growth is entirely possible, and in fact, is the optimal future our nation faces, if it acts responsibly now to prevent fiscal collapse.

Increasing the labor force through low wage immigration perpetually, ends in a net drain on national resources and fiscal carrying capacity. A limited growth in high wage immigration which fosters creative productivity growth is sustainable without social liabilities canceling the benefits. But, we are talking small, sufficient to maintain zero population growth or decline.

Importing high wage creative talent is getting increasingly more difficult, as such talent is bartering for remaining in their homeland while tele-commuting for work purposes, and the demand for their talent is growingly sufficient to force employers to comply with their demands.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2007 07:24 PM

David:

Craig that is a false statement. The economy is NOT dependent on growing labor force and or productivity. A growing GDP is not necessary for a sustaining economy. A balanced economy with zero labor force growth and zero productivity growth is entirely possible, and in fact, is the optimal future our nation faces, if it acts responsibly now to prevent fiscal collapse.

Can you show me an example? Zero growth is “optimal.”

Craig, Greenspan warns in his book of the convergence of debt and entitlement obligations potentially threatening the very existence of democratic capitalism. He is not agreeing with you.

He is predicting 2.5% real growth rate of GDP through 2030. He expects the Real GDP to be 75% higher than today. I like those numbers!!!

Here is how Greenspan concludes his chapter on our subject at hand:

In the United States, most higher-income baby boomers have the sourses of income that should prove more than adequate to fund retirement. Middle-and lower-income boomers will find financing problematic. Endeavoring to maintain today’s pay-as-you-go government backed social insurance programs, whose arithmetic requires high ratios of workers to retirees, is going to prove increasingly burdensome and unacceptable. By default, the only viable option almost surely will turn out to be some form of private financing. I’ve posed a quastion in the title of htis chapter: “The world retires. But Can it Afford To?” The answer is: It will find ways. The world has no choice. Demography is desitiny.

In other words, we will be fine.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 29, 2007 09:59 PM

Dan:

Did you read the article? Since when (in the past 70 years) did we have a history of more skilled workers providing a net benefit to tax revenues. Can you provide evidence to the contrary?

I wil submit the entire history of the United States. We are a nation of immigrants!!

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 29, 2007 10:03 PM

D.a.n.,

“Researchers and academics from several Texas universities agreed at a conference conducted by Federal Reserves Bank that immigration in the short run costs U.S. taxpayers, but in the long run the effect is beneficial for the country once immigrants start working and paying their taxes.”
http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/old_1997/dec97/1297imm3.htm

“By bringing new workers into the economy, immigration allows existing U.S. capital, land, and technology to be used more efficiently. Also on the plus side, immigrants pay property taxes, sales taxes, Social Security taxes, and income taxes.

“In the negative column, immigrants use public services in the form of public education, fire and police protection, government assistance, etc. Add the positive and negative elements together and you get what looks like a very small number.”
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115100948305787940-tA5PP0Ya_9U0AlXBQQhnaDyMIYc_20060725.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

The key is providing education to immigrants and their families. It means investing in ourselves. Making that investment results in huge returns.

For the cost of the War in Iraq, we could have provided every college student with a four year scholarship to public universities.

Both you & David point out the problems of rising population & limited resources. Obviously it would make sense to enourage small familes through public policy and, most importantly, education.

But once again, while projections of unsustainable populations are frightening, and no doubt there will be a Malthusian price to pay in impoverished countries, those are nevertheless only projections. They fail to account for unforeseeable innovations and technologies.

And pardon me for going one step too far for mankind, but while Earth may have finite resources, their are enormous resources available beyond our planet- asteroids, which lack gravity wells, and consist of metals and water- solar energy- and more.

Posted by: phx8 at September 29, 2007 10:15 PM

David:

Here is Alan Greenspan’s 2030 economic prediction from his new book:

Which brings us to our bottom line. Coupled with the projected annual increase in hours worked between 2005 and 2030 that follows the demographic assumptions cited earlier, a slightly less than 2% average growth in GDP per hour impoles a real GDP growth rate of slightly less than 2.5% per year, on average, between now and 2030. That compares with 3.1% per year, on average over the lpast quarter cewntury, when labor force growth was considerably higher

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 29, 2007 10:30 PM

Craig,
Thanks for providing that information. It fails miserably to prove your case. Did you even read it?

Gordon Hanson confirms that there is a negative economic impact. Not a net benefit. A net loss.

Gordon Hanson writes: For all the heat that the debate about immigration has generated, the net economic impact of immigration on the U.S. economy appears to be remarkably small. First, some thoughts on legal immigration, before we address illegal immigrants.

And how many of the tens of millions of immigrants (legal or not) are educated? Not many. Many can’t even speak English.

However, the same study emphasized that the key to the benefits of immigration for the U.S. are their level of education. Those with more than a high-school education had a net present value of almost $200,000, while those with less than a high-school education had a net present value of negative $13,000.

And here is the crux of the problem with immigration. You will not find tens of millions of educated and skilled workers that want to come to the U.S.

If migration is to benefit natives, the key is to select immigrants most likely to be successful: young, healthy, well-educated English speakers. If migration is to allow the world’s “huddled masses” to breathe free, there will be different selection criteria. The inability of policy makers to answer these questions may reflect American ambivalence about immigration.

And here’s another question constantly avoided: WHO benefits from this cheap labor?

Especially when the wealth disparity trend has been widening since 1980.

Let’s suppose for one minute that immigrants (both legal and illegal) produced net benefits (instead of the current hundreds of billions in net losses).
WHO is getting the benefit of those net benefits? The greedy employers?

And if illegal aliens are given amnesty without securing the borders and enforcing the laws, new illegal aliens will then displace the new immigrants just given amnesty.
The other document you provided is old (from 1997) by Source: Diario de Juárez and provides no data to back it up. It’s nothing more than a short page of opinion alone.

Here’s more recent data and a much more in depth and detailed report.
Simply saying we benefit from immigration doesn’t prove it.
The fact is, net losses on tax payers for the last 30 years has created a net loss to American Tax payers.

It took you a while to find those two articles, and one doesn’t prove any benefit, and the other is an opinion piece from 1997. Surely you can do better than that if what you are saying is true?

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 11:13 PM

Craig Holmes wrote: I wil submit the entire history of the United States. We are a nation of immigrants!!

A common excuse of the many common excuses. Then we have no sovereignty? I find the idea of immigrating tens of millions of immigrants for the purpose of helping our fiscal problems manipulative and toying with lives for selfish reasons, and importing the less educated, less skilled, and impoverished will only make things worse for current American citizens. Sure, it may improve the lives of tens of millions illegal aliens , but where is the compassion for existing Americans? Are you so certain of your plan to import tens of millions of more immigrants?

Posted by: d.a.n at September 29, 2007 11:31 PM

Craig said: “He is predicting 2.5% real growth rate of GDP through 2030. “

Which is wholly insufficient, as the CBO cites, to fund a path away from the entitlement and deficit/debt fiscal crisis looming, which would require double digit annual GDP growth (10+ %) for the next 70 years to generate sufficient revenues at today’s tax rates.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2007 11:40 PM

d.a.n.,
You must be kidding me, linking the Heritage Foundation time after time, as if it were some sort of credible source of information. Do you really think I take the Heritage Foundation seriously? Give me some credit. It is right wing think tank, founded by Joseph Coors, and responsible for providing such fine, fine leaders as Paul Bremer and Elaine Chou. They advocate Supply Side Economincs. Nuf said.

Who gains the benefits of legal immigration? The immigrant or the employer? It is not a win/lose proposition. Just the opposite. The immigrant gains by making the most of the opporuntity, for self and for children. The immigrant gains by earning minimum wage or better, and having access to social services, espcially education.

The employer gains profit through business. In a larger sense, the employer gains by the overall expansion of the consumer base. But immigrants do not merely use up government social services. They also consume goods and services, paying for those out of wages. In turn, they go on to create businesses, expanding the overall consumer base even more.

The last thing I want to hear about is how the Heritage Foundation and its large corporate donors want to push policies and points of view which ensure outsourcing and exploitative labor practices.

Posted by: phx8 at September 29, 2007 11:42 PM

Indulge me a moment while I stand on my soapbox…

The greatness of this country does not come from the top down. It does not come from corporatism, the military industial complex, or imperialistic policies of conquest and exploitation.

The greatness of this country comes from the bottom up. It comes from small businesses. It comes from the majority of Americans who are leading the political parties- not following, but leading- by demanding an end to the War in Iraq. It comes through international institutions like the Peace Corps, and Microlending institutions, not Blackwater.

Legal immigration of poor people who seek opporunity and are willing to work does not pose a win/lose proposition for other Americans. Once again, it is a situation where everyone wins.

Yes, there are problems with debt, projections, and demographics. But if we do not like the projections, the solution is simple: change the demographic assumptions.

Posted by: phx8 at September 30, 2007 12:01 AM

David:

Which is wholly insufficient, as the CBO cites, to fund a path away from the entitlement and deficit/debt fiscal crisis looming, which would require double digit annual GDP growth (10+ %) for the next 70 years to generate sufficient revenues at today’s tax rates.

Of course the point being that I’m pretty much in line with Greenspan.

Let me quote for the second time his conclusions for baby boomer retirement and entitlements:

Here is how Greenspan concludes his chapter on our subject at hand:

In the United States, most higher-income baby boomers have the sourses of income that should prove more than adequate to fund retirement. Middle-and lower-income boomers will find financing problematic. Endeavoring to maintain today’s pay-as-you-go government backed social insurance programs, whose arithmetic requires high ratios of workers to retirees, is going to prove increasingly burdensome and unacceptable. By default, the only viable option almost surely will turn out to be some form of private financing. I’ve posed a quastion in the title of htis chapter: “The world retires. But Can it Afford To?” The answer is: It will find ways. The world has no choice. Demography is desitiny.

So Greenspan sees no financial disaster in our future, (2.5% real growth) and that the world will find a way through, probably with private financing.

No huge meltdown crisis

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 30, 2007 12:08 AM

David/Dan:

I just finished reading a report by GAO on how investments will fair in the coming 30 years. They say that baby boomer retirement will have almost no effect on the stock market.

Here are a couple of reasons:

1. The wealth own most stocks and probably wont be selling.

2. Globalization. In a world economy american baby boomers as a percent of market are not all that huge.

3. Selling patterns. Retired investors usually do not sell large quantities of equities, but rather sell them slowly over their lifespan.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 30, 2007 12:11 AM

David/Dan:

Here is a conclusion from the Congressional Budget Office on Baby Boomer Retirement:

Some studies have compared boomers’ finances with those of preceding generations; others compare them with the official poverty level. Those studies conclude that, on the whole, boomers will almost certainly be better off in retirement than their parents and will be much less likely to live in poverty.

Baby boomers have benefited greatly from productivity growth, rising real (inflation-adjusted) wages, and the increasing participation of women in the labor force. Although the benefits of prosperity have been distributed unevenly, boomers generally have higher per capita income than their parents did at the same age, are preparing for retirement at largely the same pace as their parents, and have accumulated more wealth. Boomer families have roughly the same wealth-to-income ratio that families of the same age nearly 20 years earlier had (see Table 1). Those observations suggest that boomers’ saving behavior is much the same as that of their parents—and, furthermore, that baby boomers are not the source of the long-term decline in the overall personal saving rate in the United States.(3)

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at September 30, 2007 12:17 AM

Where’s the link, Craig. I don’t believe the context of this quoted passage.

Please provide the sources so that we can see the context and assumptions being made as precursors to the quotes you provide.

In the hypothetical world of projecting stock markets 30 years ahead, an incredible number of assumptions must be made, few of which are likely to realize themselves. Provide your sources.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 30, 2007 12:32 AM

phx8, Feel free to disprove the data if you can.
Discounting the source does not disprove the data.
You can find similar data at FairUS.org, CIS.ORG, ALIPAC.US, NumbersUSA.com, and others.
Have you read GAO Report 5646 about crime statistics?
Factor that into costs.
And if we give amnesty to the current 12 million illegal aliens, without enforcing laws and border security, the illegal alien problem starts all over again like it did after the amnesty of 1986.
If you really think importing the less educated, less skilled, and impoverished is good for native Americans, then why are the border states declaring a state of emergency. Even Bill Richardson who is very much pro-immigration.
How do you explain numerous studies showing the net losses (not gains).
I did my own estimates …

The U.S. has 300 million citizens (as of NOV-2006).
There are about 12 million illegal aliens (some estimates place this much higher).
But, only about 55% of illegal aliens pay federal income taxes.
That leaves 6.6 million illegal aliens that pay federal income taxes.
But, only 67% of illegal aliens are employed (the rest are children or elderly).
That leaves 4.422 million employed illegal aliens that pay income taxes.
Now, let’s assume illegal aliens average $12 per hour for 5.5 days per week (287 days per year).

That comes to $27,552 per year.
After a standard IRS deduction of $5,000 , that leaves $22,552 per year.
The highest tax rate (filing single) is 13.3647% .
Therefore, that is $3014 in federal income taxes withheld per year (using 2005 tax tables).
And, Social Security and Medicare taxes add up tp 15.3% of gross income.
That includes the 7.65% paid by the employer, and 7.65% paid by the employee.
Therefore, that amounts to $4215 for 15.3% for Social Security and Medicare taxes.
That is $18.64 billion for Social Security and Medicare taxes.

However, other estimates say that it is actually only about $7 billion.
Nevertheless, let’s continue with the much higher $18.64 billion.
Therefore, the highest estimate of total taxes paid = $7229 = $3014 + 4215 .
That is $31.97 billion per year = ($4.422 million * $7229) for all federal taxes.
Note: none of that even includes deductions for dependents.

Now lets assume the profit from their work is at least 16.7% ($2 per hour of the wage of $12 per hour) to the employer.
Thus, the value of their work is $24.08 billion per year.
Unfortunately, the U.S. citizens do not realize the entire benefit of the value of that work.
Greedy employers of illegal aliens reap most of the profit and benefit from the under-paid/under-class. That is why a huge jump in prices is a myth, and even if it were true, the net losses would still exceed net benefits.
Thus, the net value to the U.S. is $56.05 billion = $31.97 billion + $24.08 billion.

However, the net costs to U.S. tax payers is estimated at $70 billion per year (after taxes are deducted). In 1997 (nine years ago), Dr. Donald Huddle, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Rice University, found that total costs were as high as $139 billion, and net costs (after adjusting for taxes and some other net gains) were $69 billion in 1997. So, $87 billion in 2006 is a very conservative estimate, since Huddle also did not include the cost of displaced workers, crime, and disease.

Therefore, let’s use the smaller estimate of net costs (before deducting taxes) of $101.97 billion (i.e. $70 billion + $31.97 billion for taxes), which agrees closely with many estimates. At fairus.org, the estimate of costs is $87 billion per year, but that is before deducting the value of all federal taxes, which was generously estimated above at $31.97 billion. $31.97 billion is really over estimated, but let’s assume taxes paid are actually that high.

Therefore, the total cost after deducting taxes and value of work is $45.92 billion = ($101.97 billion - $31.97 billion taxes received - $24.08 billion value of work).

That cost of $45.92 billion is very close to the $45 billion estimated by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (fairus.org) which stated:

“the net expense [loss] to the taxpayer from illegal
immigration would currently be at least $45 billion”

And, that $45 billion of net losses to U.S. citizens does not even include the estimates for 2.3 million displaced U.S. workers, unemployment benefits and welfare for displaced workers, tax deductions for dependents, cost of crime, and disease. Also, it is mostly the poorest citizens that are being displaced from jobs, because of the unfair advantage that illegal aliens and their greedy employers have by not paying taxes.

Many studies place the estimated net losses to the U.S. at double that (ranging from $70 billion to $139 billion). Even if it is only $45 billion, that is not an insignificant amount. That amounts to about $1 billion per state per year.

But, we know some states are impacted drastically more. Conservative estimates of total losses for California alone, are estimated at $10.5 billion.

phx8 wrote: The last thing I want to hear about is how the Heritage Foundation and its large corporate donors want to push policies and points of view which ensure outsourcing and exploitative labor practices.

That doesn’t make sense.

Corporations and employers of illegal aliens want cheap labor to continue. Not end it. So why would these corporations be raising awareness of their flow of cheap labor? Who do you think benefits most from the cheap labor?

The so called claims that immigrants are a vast source of new taxes is a myth, unless they are educated, skilled, and less impoverished. Good luck finding immigrants like that. And while your at it, be sure to ask China and India about all the wonderful advantages of over-population.

Posted by: d.a.n at September 30, 2007 12:52 AM

d.a.n.,
Both of us oppose illegal immigration.

Here is a better link:
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1727
The signatories include five Nobel laureates, and major economists from several administrations. Numerous references are listed at the bottom.

Generally speaking, wealth accumulates in urban population centers. The wealthiest areas of the US are NYC, LA, the Bay Area, and so on. It is likely the wealth generated by the economies of India & China will eventually surpass the US, and that wealth will also be concentrated in population centers. If underpopulation were a criteria for success, Oklahoma and Mississippi would be economic powerhouses.

It comes down to investing in education, especially through the public education system.

Posted by: phx8 at September 30, 2007 01:28 AM

phx8 wrote: d.a.n., Both of us oppose illegal immigration.

Good. How can it be stopped if Democrats want votes and BOTH Republican and Democrat politicians want profits from cheap labor, and neither will enforce existing laws and/or secure the borders? We already allow 1 million new legal immigrants per year, but 2 million are illegal.

phx8, The article you provided is actually helping make my case. I don’t see how it is proving your case of net gains. Based on the article you provided, it is a bit nebulous, and the alleged gains are stated to be modest.

The article you provided states:

Overall, immigration has been a net gain for American citizens, though a modest one in proportion to the size of our 13 trillion-dollar economy.

This modest gain is debatable.
This may apply to the 1 million legal immigrants, but most certainly not for the 2 million illegal immigrants per year.
Still, the gain is modest by their own admission. Many studies show it to be a new loss. So, I think it is safe to say it is probably a wash at best (for legal immigrants).
So, why are we in this population race if the gains are modest at best?
Unfortunately, that modest gain does not also factor in crime and job displacement costs.
Also, who profits most from the cheaper labor? Not the majority of Americans. It is the employers of immigrants (legal or not). And that is corroborated by the growing disparity trend for the last 30 years.

Here’s the funny thing, no one is reporting large economic gains from immigration. You know why? Because it is a myth. And even the articles you provide and Craig provides admits the modest or small economic benefits.

If you read all of it, you realize that the economic gain is so small that they must resort to the humanitarian argument:

The article also states:

While a small percentage of native-born Americans may be harmed by immigration, vastly more Americans benefit from the contributions that immigrants make to our economy, including lower consumer prices.

I doubt that. I seriously doubt the profits of employers are passed onto consumers. Remember the disparity trend for the last 30 years (see link to chart above)? Remmber stagnant and falling median household income for many Americans for many decades? Remember that the wealthiest 1% in 1980 with 20% of all wealth now owns 40% of all wealth? The rich are getting richer. Not the poor. And they are doing it by exploiting the poor and ignorant; by pitting Americans against each other, and by pitting Americans against immigrants (legal and illegal). And corporations are not just trying to help the poor and huddled masses. They want cheap labor of all skill levels. They are always pushing for skilled labor too by raising H1B Visa and Green card limits. It’s about greed. Not compassion. If you think different, then I’ve got some beach-front property goin’ cheap in Arizona.

phx8 wrote: Here is a better link: www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1727 The signatories include five Nobel laureates, and major economists from several administrations. Numerous references are listed at the bottom.

Again, the article helps to prove the case that immigration is not the great net gains some are claiming. It calls the gains modest, admits that some job displacement occurs (i.e. “immigration of low-skilled workers may have lowered the wages of domestic low-skilled workers”), and “native-born Americans may be harmed by immigration”.

Also, I can find as many studies (and probably more) signatures and references, with doctors, Ph.D.s, economists, etc. that say the effect is a net loss.
If we entertain for a moment that the truth is somewhere in the middle, then it is a wash at best.
This is not the 1800s when we wanted to populate the nation in order to secure its sovereignty.
We don’t need that now.
The U.S. has 3.794 million square miles, of which 3.54 million square miles is land area, for 302 million people.
That is only 7.5 acres per person (and only a quarter of it is arable (farmable)).
That’s not very much.
Thus, in the U.S., there is only about 1.58 acres per person of arable land.
Are you aware of the environmental impact (e.g. pollution) of China’s 1.3 Billion people on its nation?
Or India’s 1.1 Billion people on its nation?
Are you sure you want to emulate China and India?
It takes land to grow food.

phx8 wrote: It comes down to investing in education, especially through the public education system.

You are right about education. People had better start doing a little arithmetic real soon to understand what the impact of 10 to 13 Billion people on the planet will be by 2039. Already, world wide, there is only 1.15 acres per person (on average) of arable land (1.58 acres per person in the U.S.). To make things worse, the sea levels are rising. Islands inhabited with people are disappearing. The people of the island nation of Tavula has had to abandon their islands to do rising sea levels. Islands in the Cheasapeake bay are disappearing. Bangladesh’s farm lands are being flooded with salt water.

How is this good for these American workers? How is growing the ranks of the poor and low-skilled workers a good thing?
They call it small, but none the less, it makes one wonder how importing millions of less skilled, less educated, and impoverished is going to help; especially 40 years from now when they also become entitlement recipients. Again, it’s a recipe for economic disaster.

phx8 wrote: Generally speaking, wealth accumulates in urban population centers. The wealthiest areas of the US are NYC, LA, the Bay Area, and so on. It is likely the wealth generated by the economies of India & China will eventually surpass the US, and that wealth will also be concentrated in population centers. If underpopulation were a criteria for success, Oklahoma and Mississippi would be economic powerhouses.

What about acres per person, and that land is needed to grow food, and the environmental impact by over-population? Have you really considered all important factors? Also, weatlth in the U.S. for the past 30 years is accumulating mostly with the wealthy. The disparity trend is widening (see link to chart above). In fact, it has never been worse in the U.S. since the Great Depression (see link to chart above). The U.S. has 9 major REGRESSIVE systems working against the majority of its people (see below).

So, how is emulating the over-population of China and India a good thing?
You can’t just look at overall wealth or overall GDP, when most of the wealthy is only going to a very few.
GDP does not show you where the majority of wealth is going (created on the backs of the poor and exploited immigrants).
Have you not noticed the disparity trend (see link above to chart of wealth distribution) in the U.S. in the last 30 years?
If so much immigration is a good thing, then why has the disparity trend widened since the amnesty of 1986?
Why did China decide to start limiting population growth?

phx8 wrote: It comes down to investing in education, especially through the public education system.

Another cost to existing tax payers.

Yes, education is important.
Part of that eduacation had better start looking very soon and very closely at the implication of 6.7 Billion humans, pumping 24 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, only 1.15 acres of arable land per person (only 0.53 acres by 2039 if the population grows to 13 Billion), the world population growing by 249,000 per day (91 million per year), rising sea levels (especially when a large percentage of people live in low elevation regions only 6 feet above sea level), and the greed of corporations that want to exploit the masses.

The article you provided also stated:

Legitimate concerns about the impact of immigration on the poorest Americans should not be addressed by penalizing even poorer immigrants. Instead, we should promote policies, such as improving our education system, that enable Americans to be more productive with high-wage skills.

This is a vicious cycle. As we keep increasing the population with low-skill, less-eduated, and impoverished immigrants (legal or not), it simply grows the numbers of the poor. They poor aren’t becoming more wealthy. They are just subsisting. And 30 to 40 years later, they will become eligible for Social Security and Medicare without having contributed a great deal in the way of taxes. Again, this is an economic nightmare in the making.

If immigrants were educated and skilled, it would be a different story. But that is not what is happening.

Lastly, when the facts are weak and the case is weak, play the “humanitarian card” …

We must not forget that the gains to immigrants coming to the United States are immense. Immigration is the greatest anti-poverty program ever devised. The American dream is a reality for many immigrants who not only increase their own living standards but who also send billions of dollars of their money back to their families in their home countries—a form of truly effective foreign aid.
America is a generous and open country and these qualities make America a beacon to the world. We should not let exaggerated fears dim that beacon.

• Where is the compassion for U.S. citizens that go without healthcare and access to ERs because ERs and hospitals are over-flowing with immigrants? Is this fair to U.S. tax payers?


• Where is the compassion for the truly needy U.S. citizens that can not get help because of limited resources, because 32% of immigrantss receive welfare ?


• Where is the outrage of the greedy employers that exploit cheap labor and depress wages of existing American workers?


• Where is the compassion for the millions of American workers displaced from their jobs by lower-wage workers?

Keep this up like we’re in some sort of population race, and we’ll regret it.
I haven’t heard too many other nations screaming for immigrants to come to their nation.
But then they don’t have as many greedy corporations looking to exploit a steady inflow of cheap labor.

REGRESSIVE SYSTEMS in the U.S.:
The disparity trend has been widening in the U.S. for over 30 years:

• [1] Massive debt ($9 Trillion National Debt) is being piled up on voters and younger generations too (it could last centuries). With a 77 million baby boomer bubble approaching (13,175 more people per day eligible for Social Security and Medicare), I wonder if the younger workers are going to tolerate it. The weight of so much debt is unfair and worse than a REGRESSIVE tax, since it doesn’t paint a pretty picture for them by the time the younger Americans approach old age. Especially tens and hundreds of millions of more impoverished, less skilled, and less educated immigrants. You can’t make the pie bigger.


• [2] illegal immigration is like a REGRESSIVE tax, causing job displacement and many burdens and costs to be shifted to tax payers that already pay REGRESSIVE sales taxes and REGRESSIVE income taxes for the burdened social servcies.

[3] the ridiculous federal tax system which is effectively REGRESSIVE,

• [4] inflation is like a REGRESSIVE tax, since the poor are limited in ways of preserving wealth with property, gold, stocks, homes, etc.; the mismanaged money system creates inflation; predatory interest rates and lending practices (raising ARMs from 6% to 14%); and the Fed gets to earn interest on money created out of thin air; how did this ever come about?


• [5] dozens and dozens of REGRESSIVE sales taxes (city, state, county sales taxes, fuel taxes, telephone excise taxes and fees, etc.)


• [6] corporate income taxes are more like hidden REGRESSIVE taxes passed on to consumers; have you seen owners of corporations cutting their salaries?


• [7] property taxes in many cases are REGRESSIVE, since like sales taxes, as income decreases, the property tax as a percentage of income increases.


• [8] caps (e.g. currently $97,500) on Social Security taxes is a REGRESSIVE tax; thus the wealthy collect Social Security, but they do not contribute proportionately with respect to income;


• [9] Unnecessary wars. We have had 7 wars in the last 90 years (about 1 war every 12.9 years). Two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are ongoing. Some of those wars were probably unnecessary (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq which was largely based on invalid intelligence about WMD that was never found).

All of these things have economic consequences.
The debt is growing and growing.
21 years of massive immigration since the amnesty of 1986 has not helped.
If immigration is so wonderful (with 3 million new immigrants per year), why is the $9 Trillion National debt growing so fast ?
Massive immigration (legal or not) will amplify all those problems above.
We can not immigrate our way out of our fiscal problems.

You’re right.
Education is important.
And voters, if they don’t start getting their education the smart way, they’re gonna get it the hard, painful way (again).

Posted by: d.a.n at September 30, 2007 12:19 PM

d.a.n.,
Check projections for world population. I believe the latest estimate is 9 billion human beings by 2050.

No question, limited resources are an important issue for humanity as a whole, but I do not think this directly links to the issue of immigration, because immigration involves people moving from one place to another, not increasing the overall number on the planet.

However, as issues such as limited resources, Peak Oil, and especially Global Warming play greater and greater roles, more and more people will be displaced, that is, forced to emigrate.

Posted by: phx8 at September 30, 2007 04:05 PM

d.a.n., Check projections for world population. I believe the latest estimate is 9 billion human beings by 2050.

phx8, Only if the current population growth rate slows dramatically.

• If current exponential population growth continues, it could reach 13 Billion by 2039.
• If current popultion growth continues at the same rate, it could reach 10 Billion by 2039.
• Population growth will have to slow significantly from the current rate to only be 9.0 Billion by 2039, much less by 2050.

And, for the U.S., we had stabilized population growth by 1990, but it is now on a drastic rise again.

DATE: _ U.S. Population _ Change
2006 __ 300,000,000 __ 27,309,187
1999 __ 272,690,813 __ 23,226,417
1990 __ 249,464,396 __ 22,239,715
1980 __ 227,224,681 __ 22,172,507
1970 __ 205,052,174 __ 24,381,016
1960 __ 180,671,158 __ 28,399,741
1950 __ 152,271,417 __ 20,148,971
1940 __ 132,122,446 __ 9,045,705
1930 __ 123,076,741 __ 16,615,741
1920 __ 106,461,000 __ 14,054,000
1910 __ 92,407,000 __ 16,313,000
1900 __ 76,094,000 __

What are the advantages of increased population?

Ask yourself about those population projections that show a much reduced rate (i.e. only 9 Billion by 2050).
Why does it project a significantly slowed rate of population growth?
After all, at the moment, it is accelerating (about 833 Billion per decade).
Not slowing.
At any rate, why are they projecting a slowing of the growth of the world population?
What is that telling us?
Could it be because of the stress on resources on a planet with limited resources?

I surely hope population growth slows soon. The planet has limits. Especially when arable land is used to grow food and livestock.

No question, limited resources are an important issue for humanity as a whole, but I do not think this directly links to the issue of immigration, because immigration involves people moving from one place to another, not increasing the overall number on the planet.

It depends.

As population grows in any specific region, it uses up more resources in that region.
Are we so certain we want to be in a population race?
Especially when it is not likely to be skilled or educated?
What if it doesn’t increase tax revenues, but increases the drain from tax revenues?
Especially with the massive debt facing the nation?

I think immigration is at best a wash, and probably a net loss to current tax payers.
It would take many tens of millions of immigrants (no older than age 21) that are educated and skilled to raise tax revenues enough to put a dent in the $9 Trillion National Debt. It’s not a good plan.

We can not only look at GDP as a measure of the health of a nation.
We have to also see WHO gets that wealth.
And we currently have a widening disparity trend.
If that disparity trend is allowed to continue, the middle income group will continue to shrink, and the ranks of the poor will grow.

I think there is a better way, and that would be to eliminate the many REGRESSIVE systems (above) to make it more fair (i.e. a NEUTRAL tax system and elimination of the other many very REGRESSIVE systems that most people are unaware of; especially sales taxes, which are extremely REGRESSIVE).

Posted by: d.a.n at September 30, 2007 05:11 PM

The rate of world population growth peaked in 1963, and since then that rate has decreased:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopinfo.html

Posted by: phx8 at September 30, 2007 06:32 PM

phx8, that is like Republicans claiming they are reducing deficits. True enough, but, the national debt continues to increase, as does world population. One day, perhaps, we can zero out both deficits and population growth.

Now those would be data links worth publishing.

Posted by: David R. Remer at September 30, 2007 06:38 PM

I stand corrected.

The world population is still growing by 77 million per day, but the rate of growth has slowed.

That is encouraging.

However, I’m still not sure we should emulate China or India. I still don’t think more less educated and skilled will fix our fiscal problems.
If we need more skilled workers, why not train our own citizens?

Yes, like the world population, the National Debt is still growing and I don’t think we can immigrate our way of debt. After all, the U.S. population grew a lot in the last 16 years.
Did it reduce the federal debt?

DATE: _ U.S. Population _ Change
2006 __ 300,000,000 __ 27,309,187
1990 __ 249,464,396 __ 22,239,715

Posted by: d.a.n at September 30, 2007 07:13 PM

It’s the U.S. population rate that is increasing.
It was decreasing in the 1960s and 1970s.
Now the rate of increase is rising sharply since 1999.

So the idea to reduce debt is to increase immigration to increase tax revenues?

It won’t work:

• (1)unless the REGRESSIVE taxes are made NEUTRAL so the those profiting the most from all the cheap labor are taxed on all their profits. Otherwise, the disparity trend will continue.


• (2)unless other REGRESSIVE systems are fixed to be NEUTRAL (e.g. sales taxes, Social Security caps, inflation.


• (3)unless illegal immigration is stopped, immigration laws are enforced, and borders are secured.


• (4)if the majority of immigrants are uneducated, unskilled, and can’t speak English.


• (5)unless Congress becomes fiscally responsible and stops the excessive spending and borrowing, and starts to address the $9 Trillion National Debt.

Based on number (5), I’d say we’re screwed.
Especially since voters reward them for it with 97.6% re-election rates.

Posted by: d.a.n at October 1, 2007 12:56 AM

d.a.n.,
Overall taxation rates are part of the problem along with spending. In the case of Social Security, I would still argue that a demographic approach, namely legal immigration, would be part of a long-term solution. The best solutions require long-term investments, which means spending up front for larger returns in the long run.

As for the $9 trillion national debt, it is a horrendous problem, and I am pretty pessimistic about the abilities of either political party to address it. But while the Democratic Party is giving almost everyone cause to doubt, the GOP has removed any doubt whatsoever about the inefficacy of their program.

While incumbents do have an overwhelming advantage, it is worth noting not one incumbent Democrat lost to a Republican in the 2006 midterms, while many incumbent Republicans lost to Dems.

The best hope would be publicly financed elections. Barring that, the next most realistic solution would be to work for a Democratic presidency & supermajority in Congress. Will they get the job done?

I am tempted to laugh out loud, but that seems to be the best chance for putting our house back in order.

Posted by: phx8 at October 1, 2007 01:20 AM

The one thing I don’t see being brought up here is the personal debt crisis looming in this country. The national debt is bad enough, but with the housing bubble finally popping, combined with energy prices, it puts the Fed between a rock and a hard place similar to the late 1970s. The biggest difference is that now, with housing going into a tailspin, the Fed cannot raise interest rates to try to stimulate the economy, because that would only exacerbate the problem. Americans carry so much debt, and are so use to using their houses as piggy banks, that 1970’s level interest rates would destroy us economically.

Our issues with lead in Chinese products couldn’t come at a worse time, either. China holds such a huge chunk of America’s debt that we are almost forced to import all their cheap plastic crap, and anything that could interfere with that doesn’t help our economy.

Any one of these problems would be bad, but solvable. On the other hand, national debt + personal debt + housing problems + trade issues + global warming + energy prices = ….?

L

Posted by: leatherankh at October 1, 2007 10:45 AM

Barring that, the next most realistic solution would be to work for a Democratic presidency & supermajority in Congress.

While the politicians in BOTH parties can’t work together on much (if anything), I think one-party rule is worse. It was bad when Democrats had a huge majroity between 1956 to 1996 (Vietnam, double-digit inflation, massive debt), and it was bad when Republicans had a smaller majority between 1996 and 2006 (Iraq-2003 to present, more debt, etc.).

The one thing I don’t see being brought up here is the personal debt crisis looming in this country.

True. It’s bad: $20 Trillion And income is not keeping up with the debt. And the burden of debt is not even distributed because the tax system is REGRESSIVE, along with many other REGRESSIVE systems that all work in the favor of the wealthy. All of these REGRESSIVE systems (see 9 things above) are not by accident.

Now there are some regulars here that are going to point to $100 Trillion total wealth nationwide.
The problem with that argument is that:

• 10% of the U.S. population owns 70% of it


• 80% of the U.S. population owns only 17% of all wealth


• 40% of the U.S. population has a net worth of only a few thousand dollars


• 20% of the U.S. population has a negative net worth (i.e. debt)

And that disparity trend has been worsening since 1976.

The federal government borrowed and spent $12.8 Trillion from Social Security and we now have a 77 million baby boomer bubble approaching.

The $9 Trillion National Debt is 64% of GDP.
The $22 Trillion of total federal debt is 157% of GDP.
The total $45 Trillion+ nationwide debt is 320% of GDP.
Social Security and Medicare are pay-as-you go since those funds were borrowed and spent already. Younger voters should be upset, but too few are aware of what’s going on.

There’s nothting wrong with being wealthy. The problem is they have politicians in their pocket.
But voters have a right to vote. If they repeatedly reward bought-and-paid-for incumbent politiciams with 97.6% re-election rates, that’s their choice, and they have the government they deserve.

Yes, I don’t see how anyone can paint a rosy picture from all of it, but they do. And perhaps it is if your are wealthy (and getting wealthier with all the REGRESSIVE systems).

Posted by: d.a.n at October 1, 2007 11:36 AM

David:

You asked for me to provide a link to the following quote:

Some studies have compared boomers’ finances with those of preceding generations; others compare them with the official poverty level. Those studies conclude that, on the whole, boomers will almost certainly be better off in retirement than their parents and will be much less likely to live in poverty. Baby boomers have benefited greatly from productivity growth, rising real (inflation-adjusted) wages, and the increasing participation of women in the labor force. Although the benefits of prosperity have been distributed unevenly, boomers generally have higher per capita income than their parents did at the same age, are preparing for retirement at largely the same pace as their parents, and have accumulated more wealth. Boomer families have roughly the same wealth-to-income ratio that families of the same age nearly 20 years earlier had (see Table 1). Those observations suggest that boomers’ saving behavior is much the same as that of their parents—and, furthermore, that baby boomers are not the source of the long-term decline in the overall personal saving rate in the United States.(3)

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=5195&type=0

Baby boomers appear to be in fine shape for retirement, although lower income baby boomers will need assistance.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at October 1, 2007 06:20 PM

David:

Here is another link for you to look at:

Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. are generally wellpositioned because they have fewer demographic and labor market challenges and have more supportive policies in effect regarding the aging population. In Germany and France, the turnaround is well under way, thanks to farreaching changes recently implemented and apparent political commitment to seeing these changes through. In Italy and Japan, by contrast, more focus is still required because these countries face the toughest demographic challenges of any of the G7 countries—rapidly aging populations, growing longevity and anemic birth rates.

America in ahead of the “curve” with the age wave compared to other G-7 Countries.

http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/econ/intl_older_worker_1.pdf

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at October 1, 2007 06:42 PM

David:

Here is another link for you to consider:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06718.pdf

This one is from the GAO which says that Baby boomer retirement will have almost no effect on the stock market.

There are at least three reasons:

1. The rich hold most of the money in the stock market, (Dan’s point). So most folks hold a smaller percentage of stock market assets than people realize.

2. Globalization of world markets. With so many buyers coming on board around the world Americian Baby boomer assets are much smaller than as a percentage of the world market than people think.

3. Retired workers do not sell large portions of their assets, but rather sell them down over a long period of time.

All this to say that the stock market should follow normal patterns during the age wave.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at October 1, 2007 06:51 PM

David/Dan:

Summarizing all of the above data, here is what I take from this:

1. Real GDP will continue to grow at a healthy clip (2.5% average) between now and 2030.

2. The current system of medicare will be changed because as Greenspan says the “arithmatic” doesn’t work.

3. Babyboomers will create a new life category between full employment and complete retirement. (Over 70 of baby boomers plan on continuing to work into their retirement).

4. Stock market averages will not be greatly disrupted during baby boomer retirement.

5. On the whole baby boomers are in better shape for retirement than their parents, although as always lower income baby boomers will require assistance.

6. America as well as Britain and Canada are in reasonable shape for the coming age wave, Japan and Italy are struggling.

Looks like a pretty solid future,

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at October 1, 2007 07:15 PM

But who gets the GDP?
Why is the disparity trend widening?
2% of the U.S. population owns over 50% of all wealth.

Posted by: d.a.n at October 1, 2007 08:54 PM

Dan:

I think you are missing the basic point. Even including your valid issue that life isn’t fair, and that there is income and wealth disproportionment, the above articles say that baby boomers as a whole are on track for a reasonable retirement.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at October 1, 2007 09:18 PM

Dan:

Thought I would send you some red meat for your arguments that I came across:

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2007/09/21/more-needs-to-be-done-to-deal-with-aging-populations/

Have fun!!

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at October 1, 2007 09:28 PM

Craig quoted: “Those observations suggest that boomers’ saving behavior is much the same as that of their parents—and, furthermore, that baby boomers are not the source of the long-term decline in the overall personal saving rate in the United States.”

Sorry, Craig, but, you must not have read the last lines and asked the obvious question. With so many current and past retirees remaining in the consumer pool BECAUSE of pensions (getting rare), and Soc. Sec. income, and Medicare/Medicaid, and the FACT that benefits for these programs are going to have to be cut, how can it be logical to conclude retirees of 20 years ago are not going to be BETTER off than retirees 20 years from now, since all else appears equal?

Posted by: David R. Remer at October 1, 2007 11:41 PM

Craig said: “This one is from the GAO which says that Baby boomer retirement will have almost no effect on the stock market.”

Sorry, again, Craig, but, the GAO is also assuming the US works its way out of the convergence of national debt and entitlement spending spiraling. That is DEFINITELY not a given.

In case you hadn’t noticed, recent data show the U.S. is experiencing much stiffer competition for both federal borrowing as well as Stock market capitalization, which has dropped significantly against the European’s for example, which has grown, as are many other markets in emerging nations competing with U.S. Markets which much greater room for growth. This time next year, I expect the GAO report on this topic will not be so disarming.

Posted by: David R. Remer at October 1, 2007 11:49 PM

Craig,

You are grasping at straws and constantly ignore history, human nature, and the many REGRESSIVE systems as if they all have no bearing whatsoever on the future.

Even the document you linked to above fails to recognize several key factors:

• those other nations with more debt than the U.S. (relative to GDP) are much smaller countries. if they choose to do so, they can effect change easier and faster.


• While many nations have rampant corruption, are the governments of the nations on the list you provided as corrupt and FOR-SALE as the U.S.?


• Do those other nations have the massive military machine we have; sucking up resources and hundreds of billions annually (much of it corporate welfare)?
• Do those other nations have the many REGRESSIVE systems we have that are widening the disparity trend?


• Do those other countries have 3+ million new impoverished, less educated, and less skilled immigrants per year?

All the rosy predictions all depend on one thing that is not supported by history or the facts of human nature over the short term:

That we will change course in time to avoid the approaching iceberg(s)

After all, the disparity trend has been widening for over 30 years.
What makes you think Congress is suddenly going to become morally and fiscally responsible and accountable enough to suddenly undo these many REGRESSIVE systems?
Especially when most voters are programmed to reward Congress with 98.4% re-election rates since year 2000?
All of your projections leave out one important element:

the human element

Do you seriously think (any time soon) that the majority of voters are going to suddenly stop pulling the party-lever and rewarding 98.4% of incumbent politicians with re-election?
Do you think it will happen soon enough?
I seriously doubt it.
And that is why things will get worse.
Not because we can’t solve problems if we wanted to.
Because too few want to.
Especially those running things (into the ground, that is).

Craig, Just curious … are you a financial advisor, broker, or somehting along those lines?

Posted by: d.a.n at October 2, 2007 11:48 AM

David:

Sorry, Craig, but, you must not have read the last lines and asked the obvious question. With so many current and past retirees remaining in the consumer pool BECAUSE of pensions (getting rare), and Soc. Sec. income, and Medicare/Medicaid, and the FACT that benefits for these programs are going to have to be cut, how can it be logical to conclude retirees of 20 years ago are not going to be BETTER off than retirees 20 years from now, since all else appears equal?

For some you are certainly correct. However as the following link from a survey done for Merrill Lynch indicates about 2/3 of baby boomers plan to continue working for non financial reasons.

http://www.ml.com/?id=7695_7696_8149_46028_46503_46635

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at October 2, 2007 06:36 PM

David:

Sorry, again, Craig, but, the GAO is also assuming the US works its way out of the convergence of national debt and entitlement spending spiraling. That is DEFINITELY not a given.

To which they conclude:

Furthermore, people’s saving behavior is influenced by their expectations about future benefits. To the extent that baby boomers believe they will receive all of the government benefits to which they would be